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sila: whoa!! that sure looks like fun! well done on participating and great job learning! hopefully you can…Hisham: Sure thing, Luke! Hope to see the birthday wish too if it’s possible.Luke: Hi, I would like to use one of ur photo to design a birthday wish for Sitiawan. I would put a credit …Hisham: Let’s just say “Canto Bight” was originally the name of some Tapani Sector noble’s pet duck.Edward: Or the city was named after the planet. Or they were both named after some forgotten dignitary. Weird…sila: glad that opah felt better though. hope she continues to feel healthy.sila: yay to a successful surgery! i hope you are recovering nicely. i’m imagining weird things with the s…Hisham: Thanks, chief. And yes I think your name is the longest we’ve ever had on here. Haha.

About

Hisham and Sila has been writing stuff down on this weblog since 2005. Sometimes they post photos of family, sometimes they talk about film, books and music, sometimes there is artwork and stuff about tabletop gaming.

This afternoon, Ain, Irfan and I went to Teik Sing's house to celebrate New Year. The last time the former ACS students of SPM 1990 gathered together was during Independence Day 2005 in 1 Utama. I almost missed the gate into Teik Sing's house, which Warren and I remembered to be bigger. 15 years of memory can play tricks on a person.

Later tonight, after Teik Sing and Michelle are finished with Fearless with Jet Li at Arasu theatre, we might meet up for a drink at the Lumut seafront stalls. Irfan is asleep, so he'll be staying home. More pictures then.

The best fried calamari (sotong celup tepung) on this planet, as well as several other planets and moons (including the seafood industry on Europa), is located at the Medan Ikan Bakar FELCRA at Simpang Dua, Sitiawan. The taste and the texture is just right. And saying that the price is very affordable there is an understatement. In Sitiawan, this is where we'd like to engorge ourselves on seafood on special occasions.

Last night we went there to celebrate Irfan's grandparents 34th anniversary. Here are three of the photos from the dinner.

Here it is, the final installment of our northern california vacation, Part V: The Petrified Forest and more! To recap, we had just gone Seal Hunting and found the (almost) mythical After-Christmas Seals. After running around on the beach with the seals (well, we did the running, the seals just laid there relaxing), we headed back up the little road out of the beach.

Along the way, there were small parking areas overlooking some cool rock formations in the ocean.

Once upon a lifetime ago, I used to repair helicopters. The job wasn't at all glamorous. All you had to do was to follow the manual, observe regulations and ensure the paperwork was correct. Everyday you had to perform scheduled maintenance.

Then one day I quit and left it all.

For five years, I worked in various other fields gathering knowledge other than helicopter maintenance. Because the aviation industry here was close-knitted, there was no way I would be returing to reparing airplanes...

... or so I thought.

Last two weeks have been weird and almost surreal. After a call from one of my former colleagues in the helicopter offshore company, I've since met the most number of former colleagues in the last 10 working days than I've ever met in the last five years.

The short story is that a bunch of them has started a new company and the need someone with an IT background to help them start it from scratch and run it. I accepted. Why, after all these years? Because it looked to me that in my absence my former peers have put themselves in a position to change the landscape of the industry here in the country. Out with the old and in with the new, gradually.

And I like the way how things are going with them in charge. So here I am back to what I started fifteen years ago, in a full circle.

Some cards were sent. A blueberry cheese cake was eaten. Irfan sang the Happy Birthday song. Ain also made a pot of fried noodles. And because Kak Nor also had the same birthdate as Ain, both sisters celebrated here on our little round dinner table at our house.

The saga continues with Part IV: The Christmas Seals? Christmas day dawned rainy and foggy in Santa Rosa. When we went to bed the night before, the weatherman had predicted another sunny day. Phaugh! Never trust the weather man!

Nevertheless, Vin and I decided we would go on the hunt for Seals (we were told by my former-colleague Don Floyd that the mouth of the Russian River was a good place to find elephant seals). We looked for seals in Eureka and Trinidad with no luck! No ewoks turned up in the redwood forests either. So, after a great breakfast buffet, Vin and I went off to look for the mouth of the Russian River and hopefully some seals!

I do feel a little guilty for piling on the pictures but we really did have a good time in northern california. Part I should be subtitled "Rainy San Fran", Part II is "Eureka! Redwoods!", and this Part III is really "Avenue of the Giants, a.k.a. You thought the other redwoods were big? Get a load of this!"

In our journey so far, we have covered the first three days of our trip. It's now Christmas Eve and we hang out with Jeff and his family that morning before we take off southwards.

Spoiler Alert. This is an essay concerning the actions of Lee “Apollo” Adama of Battlestar Galactica in the episode Resurrection Ship, Part 2. If you’re adverse to spoilers it's strongly suggested that you read no further. And if you're local and want to catch it on TV, they're starting to show the first season on 8TV at 10pm Sundays, the same time as Smallville on TV3.

A former school classmate Sockalingam, upon reading my past entry on Vernon Netto, did some investigation on his own and returned with some good news. In an email dated January 11, he wrote:

After reading Hisham's mail below, I contacted Vernon's family back in Sitiawan and he is fine and they passed him my contact number. He called me yesterday and when I told him bout the link he was very surprised. He was working in Acheh running his medical clinic and two days before the Tsunami he was called to Medan for work and when he got back everything was washed out. Lucky for him his wife was ok and he is now back in KL.

It appears that what we've hope for, that the CNN web page I linked earlier was either untrue or badly in need of updating. Fantastic news. Thanks, Socka.

Eureka!! We finally arrived there!! To Eureka, California that is. We drove the 5-6 hours north on highway 101 until we reached Eureka, and we checked into our hotel with great relief. It was pitch dark, we were tired and hungry, and it had rained the entire drive.

The next morning, we woke up to sunny skies and beautiful weather. So we got together with Jeff (Vin's buddy from La Porte High School, IN) who lives in Eureka, and he took us to see the sights.

Never let it be said I ran the Wild Gundark game without having at least one group illustration done for the team. Clockwise from top left, Groo McShae the Duros sensor tech, Similiv Zalimort the Kerestian first mate, Captain Nisa Dyaton the pilot, Aleic Karnsky the gunner, N4-M8 the mercenary and Wayang Kulit the Jawa droid tech specialist. Click below to view the image.

For Christmas, Vin and I went roving again...this year we flew to San Francisco, and stayed in Northern California for 8 days.

Part I will cover the first few days we were there - these are the days we spent in San Francisco proper (we arrived in San Fran Tuesday morning December 20th, and stayed until Thursday December 22nd early afternoon). The rest of the time was spent driving up and down the Northern California Coast.

We only noticed it when Ain got off the car to buy some drinks in Kuala Kangsar. It was on Ain's seat, hidden beneath her when she sat. It was a small coin purse labeled Adamas Goldsmith. Wondering when Ain bought the purse, I took it. Irfan saw it and said, “Opah punya.” And within it was Opah Irfan's driver's licence and identification card!

Last night we finally saw Peter Jackson's version of King Kong. Upon reading initial articles that said that the movie was too long and were boring during the beginning and had pointless scenes aboard the Venture part of the movie, I thought "I'll take whatever you dish out." I would enjoy what I could and get it over with.

To my surprise, the movie did not bore me to tears at all. Sure there were the trademark lingering close up shots of actors' (and one giant CG alpha male silverback's) faces that inundated Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I did not think there were any pointless and unengaging scenes in the movies. Everything added to the storyline, and the overall atmosphere of the movie.

A grinning Similiv replied, “Probably, Greenskin... but we wouldn't want our lives to be boring now would we?”

Finally after much contemplation, Nisa grimly said, “OK! We have a meet, but get ready for anything this time. We have about 12 hours till the meet, and I want to be alive for it.”

And now the conclusion:

The world was known as Daver Kuat, third planet from its sun, a standard terrestrial life-bearing world. Unlike its sister world Kuat, which was a great big mess of thousands of ships surrounding it, orbital traffic here was light. On the farthest side of the planet from the sun, there was an island. Upon the island was a mountain. At the side of the mountain, there was a cave, spewing fiery smoke from it. Right outside the cave on flat ground was a YZ-900 light freighter. Six beings within this ship were considering their next move, now that the passenger who promised to pay them for passage had disappeared.

And they seemed to be right smack in the middle of the local politics of the Noble Houses of Kuat, which was known to be pretty deadly.

Today Irfan's youngest aunt, his Cik Su F, enrolled in MIAT. In three and a half years, she will be graduating with a Diploma in Aviation Maintenance Technology (Avionics), with a bunch of skillset that should be more marketable in the aviation industry than my old Licenced Aircraft Maintenace Engineer (Yeah it's LAME, I know) with Rotorcraft Airframe and Engine specialisation. Irfan was there. Some pictures were taken. Here they are.